from Chris Wescott of ChicagoBlackhawks.com,

On why the team pursued Cam Ward

Cam was someone we talked to right away when the period opened up to talk to players. A couple of things… first off, he's obviously got the experience. He's played over 600 games in his career, so that's an important factor with somebody who has the pedigree with winning and being able to handle that load if need be. We're not expecting him to have to carry the load for us, but we do think it's nice knowing that you have a goaltender in Cam who has played a lot of hockey. He had a good season last year and in the last few years, at this point in his career, he's still able to play quite a bit. I think it forms a really nice tandem between him and Corey. At the end of the day, I think you need to have two proven goaltenders if you want to have a realistic chance. We still have good depth at goaltending. Looking at all the teams that have had success, you use three or four goalies a year. You can't get by with just one or two. We still have a lot of younger guys still growing in that role. With Cam, he brings some experience in the role and I think as you get older and sometimes your role changes from being a number one to being a 1A or a two. Cam has shown the ability to transition into that and still be an effective goalie.

On where he sees Chris Kunitz fitting in and what attracted the Blackhawks to him

Well, the first thing about Chris is he's got some versatility to the way he can be used by the coaching staff. Talking to Joel (Quenneville) the last couple of days, that was one thing that was really appealing. Joel was really excited about the potential to have someone like Chris… who with winning four Stanley Cups, he has a lot of ingredients to his game, competitive guy and I think he can really help bolster our veteran group....

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